{"id":26612,"date":"2026-06-07T23:23:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T23:23:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/26612\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T23:23:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T23:23:10","slug":"anthony-albanese-julia-gillard-join-victorian-premier-jacinta-allan-in-denouncing-sexist-billboards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/26612\/","title":{"rendered":"Anthony Albanese, Julia Gillard join Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan in denouncing sexist billboards"},"content":{"rendered":"

Victorian premier Jacinta Allan says a mobile billboard seen in the Melbourne CBD featuring a doctored image of herself alongside the phrase “ditch the witch”, is sexist and part of a “corrosive” political debate.<\/p>\n

“A billboard truck using sexist language has been driving around Melbourne as part of a secret and well-funded political campaign,” Ms Allan said on Sunday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“People are entitled to disagree with me. That’s democracy. But I care that this attacks women.”<\/p>\n

The premier said political debate had become “corrosive” in the last few years and behaviour that once would have been condemned is now “just another part of life”.<\/p>\n

The same derogatory phrase was infamously used on a sign, which then federal Opposition leader Tony Abbott stood beside<\/a>, during a protest against former prime minister Julia Gillard in 2011.<\/p>\n

Ms Gillard released a statement saying she was “disgusted” by the use of the same slogan 15 years later.<\/p>\n

“It was roundly condemned then. In the years since, my view has been that things were slowly improving for women in politics,” she said via Instagram.<\/p>\n

“I am saddened to see that improvement cast aside and this tired old trope resurrected.”<\/p>\n

Ms Gillard labelled those responsible for funding the anti-Allan signs “sexists” and called for the signs to be removed.<\/p>\n

“Why should women and girls in Victoria be subjected to such visible misogyny?” she said.<\/p>\n

Other federal and state Labor MPs have criticised the signs since yesterday including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“No matter who you support in politics, it is completely unacceptable to demean, objectify, belittle or offend women,” he wrote on X.<\/p>\n

The Victorian Opposition said on Sunday it was not behind the ad campaign.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0“The Liberals and Nationals will never take that kind of attitude, we don’t believe in that type of thing,” Liberal MP David Southwick told reporters.<\/p>\n

“We don’t condone that kind of behaviour. Our thoughts are certainly focus on the government because the government are the problem, not the individual.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Victorian premier Jacinta Allan says a mobile billboard seen in the Melbourne CBD featuring a doctored image of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26613,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[24779,1646,18981,3965,260,11758,24780,2589],"class_list":["post-26612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-melbourne","tag-ditch-the-witch","tag-jacinta-allan","tag-julia-gillard","tag-liberal-party","tag-melbourne","tag-opposition","tag-sexism","tag-tony-abbott"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}